


"we are going home."

by GilbertsMangoes



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel
Genre: Angst, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Dorks in Love, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I'm Bad At Tagging, Post series finale, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, dousy, idk how, in less than a season, it will give you diabetes, no seriously, these two are my otp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27517300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GilbertsMangoes/pseuds/GilbertsMangoes
Summary: A collection of Agents of SHIELD- mostly Dousy- oneshots to cope with the bittersweet ending of one of my favorite shows." "And it won't," he simply replies. "SHIELD be damned, you come first."Daisy heard this from him often, but every time he said it, she thought back ten years ago, how helpless she felt. Back then, she had felt homeless-and technically, she was- with no place in this world. She had given up all hopes on  a content life, on a family.She had proven herself wrong after all. SHIELD was her family. Coulson and May were her parents, FitzSimmons were her closest siblings, Mack was her older brother, and YoYo was the big sister she never had.And Daniel Sousa... he was the very epitome of everything she had lost when Jiaying had gone rogue so many years ago: love. "
Relationships: Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Comments: 33
Kudos: 103





	1. (even in my worst times) you could see the best of me

**Author's Note:**

> Summary: Daisy has her fair share of horrors at night time, but Daniel's there to drive the demons away.
> 
> This first one is based on a really good dousy fic I read called, "i don't belong(and my beloved neither do you)" by doctorsimmonswilson. I just liked the concept and did my own take on it.

_No._

_She watches with abject terror as the miniscule device brings him-a strong, sturdy, reliable man- to his knees._

_It couldn't be. Not again._

_He falls to the ground in a heap, hands and face stained with the most terrible kind of crimson. His ever caring chocolate brown eyes glaze over, drawing a final breath from him before his muscles relax, and his lips part gently. If his eyes were not startlingly open, if his broad chest didn't lack the steady rise and fall, he would have looked like he was deep in peaceful sleep to an outsider._

_Breathe, she tells herself, her lungs betraying her. It's just a dream, she thinks as she can do nothing but fall beside his body numbly. She almost feels his characteristic warmth drain from him, a sickening stone cold replacing it._

_"Sousa," she whispers, shaking him vigorously. "Sousa, please wake up," she beseeches, drops of moisture unwittingly falling from her eyes. "Please, d-don't leave me. I can't lose you too."_

_She curls up beside him, resting her head on his chest as she always did, every single night before falling asleep. This time, she didn't hear the lulling and never faltering thump._

_"I'm sorry," she sobs one last time, the taste of salt on her tongue as she heaved with cries. She gasps for breath, the most horrible curdling sensation in her stomach. It was as if she had ingested a knife, piercing her from the inside out. For a moment, she sees his face flicker and morph into something new. Ward, then Jiaying, Trip, Lincoln, Fitz, Enoch, Deke... everyone she had lost over the past years. "Daniel..."  
_

"Daniel!" She thrashes around in bed, grasping and groping frantically, desperately for the nearest warmth: holding on while she still could. She heaves for precious breath, crawling closer towards the comfort. "Don't leave me, please! Please, please, no," she screams with such disheartening brokenness that the sound sends tears directly to her partner's eyes. 

His Daisy had been through too much for one person. He could hear the thunder of her heart beat pounding away in her chest.

"Stay with me, please. No, no, wake up. You-you don't understand, I... I need- please, stay here..."

"I'm right here, Daisy," he whispers to her, pulling her closer. "I'm right here, doll. I'll never leave you; I promise."

She could feel strong fingers land on her head, stroking her hair soothingly. They drift down to her back, rubbing gentle circles. For such a large person, he treats her so delicately at these times, as if she was the most precious and coveted jewel. Her fingers curl around some kind of fabric. She uses it as a lifeline, burrowing her face into it and breathing him in in quavering inhalations.

"Daniel," she whimpers again, leaning impossibly closer into his touch. "You're- you're here, and you're not..." She trails off, his face flashing through her mind again. That time loop had never bothered her until there was a consequential threat of them losing their lives with the Chronicoms. After that, his face during that moment haunted her every day, some more than others. What would happen if she lost him like every other person?

She clambers to sit up in bed, chest still rising and falling erratically. Once she looks around and realizes that they are in their regular room in their SHIELD protected house, she starts to regain her senses a little bit. He was here with her like always. She thanked whatever higher power there was for that every day.

"Daisy," his deep voice sighs as a wave of relief and comfort washes over her. "I'm right here."

"I know," she snaps, an edge to her voice. "I'm sorry," she says meekly after a long moment, putting her head in her hands. "I didn't mean to wake you. Go back to bed."

"It's okay. I'm awake now." He sits up beside her, wrapping his large hands around her thin wrists and bringing them down to see her tear streaked face. His thumbs run over her fingers, subconsciously tracing the letters of her name into the back of her hands. His hands move down to her waist and near her abdomen. His fingers stroke random shapes there too as he looks into her normally glowing light brown eyes.

She usually looks so put together, face clean, fresh, and eyes stormy with determination. It was in these rare moments that he got to see a concealed side of her, one where her hair was matted, where her eyes were vulnerable and helpless, where she showed what really afflicted her.

"No, you'll regret it tomorrow," she croaks hoarsely. She contradicts herself by unconsciously squeezing his hand tighter. "It was just... a little nightmare."

He shakes his head, moving closer to her. "You were uh, inconsolable for a while there. It was worse than even that time last year. What happened this time?" Slowly, his hands run across her face and wipe off the residue of tears.

When these bouts of nightmares happened, they weren't frequent, rather choosing to reoccur at strange periods of time with the oddest triggers. The last time she'd had one was two weeks ago, far less intense as this one. 

He lays back down, inviting her to snuggle back underneath the covers with him. She obliges, pressing into his side and resting her head on his chest. Thankfully, she can hear the steadfast and unwavering beat of his heart. His scarred half-leg presses against her left thigh. She remembers how for the longest time, he'd insisted on sleeping on the right side of the bed so that his stump would face away from her. Now, they were perfectly at ease with the other. 

"You-you died," she begins softly, the words pricking her eyes with tears. They are driven away by his presence. His hands stroke her hair soothingly. He is still for a split second before continuing his movements. "And I..." Her eyes flutter shut, and she squeezes them closed to hold in the swell of emotion. "I was helpless. It was my fault."

"Why would it be your fault?" he murmurs into her ear. He kisses the top of her head chastely.

"I-I couldn't protect you," she admits with a disheartened sigh. "Like I couldn't protect everybody else. These dreams... they're always the same, but," she struggles to find words. "Sometimes it's Coulson, or Mack, or Fitz, or Simmons, you get the drift. But tonight...tonight it was you. You left me."

"I'm not going anywhere," he reassures, shaking his head very lightly. "I promise you, I'll be right here."

"You can't," she denies, shaking her head quickly. "Don't...make any promises. It always happens. They promise to stay, and then...they're torn away from me before I can tell them how much-how much I love them. Our job is...fundamentally dangerous, and you could-just, don't tell me that you'll never leave. You can't guarantee it."

He considers this, and she watches as his lips purse with thought.

"You're correct. I can't. But I can promise you that nothing in my control can take me away from you. I will always stay with you for as long as I can. I love you, you know that." He plants a kiss on her furrowed brow. 

"I know," she agrees, craning her neck and kissing the bottom of his throat where she's nuzzled just below it. "I just...don't have the best record with love. Every time I get to care about someone, romantic or otherwise, it's like as soon as they care, they disappear. Like the universe can't let me have a fricking break. That leads me to believe that it's something to do with me."

Daniel's mouth falls agape as if he had never considered it. He brushes some hair away from her face and looks down at her with a special kind of fondness, a look she now knew was reserved especially for her. 

"None of the things that happened were your fault, Daisy," he says seriously, the strong urge to kiss all her troubles away plaguing him. His decadent brown eyes overflowed with concern like twin cups of chocolate. His lips set into a disapproving straight line at her words. "Please don't blame yourself, doll. You have the purest heart I've seen in anyone on Earth. Don't beat yourself up over something you couldn't control. You've had the worst run of it, but you're still the loveliest, most kindhearted, and best person I know."

Daisy contemplates it without moving an inch from his calming arms. In the silence of the room, you could hear both of their slow breaths, heartbeats synced with the other. 

"I watched you die in those time loops, again and again, and each time I felt... just pain. I never want to feel even a-a shadow of that again. I...I don't want to lose you because of my own mistakes," she finally divulges, and her vulnerable voice breaks at the end of the barely whispered sentence. He heard it loud and clear. "Especially not now," she adds, her eyes flitting downwards towards her own body for a moment.

His hands slide down to cup her small waist, and his thumb slides up and down her hip, dipping down to touch her stomach sometimes.

"Daisy, you can't blame yourself for somebody else's actions," he stresses. His voice remains hushed, but his his tone almost pleading for her to fully realize his words. "I'll tell Death himself to go to hell if he tries to take me away from you. I crossed timelines just to be with you, Daisy. I won't let a career take me. You are... the best thing to ever happen to me, doll."

"No," she chuckles dryly. He can feel her shake her head at his words. "You don't understand. Screw the timelines. All of those people can just... stay away, as long as I have you. You are literally the best thing to happen to me. I finally have... a chance at a family, Daniel. A real life, even if we don't exactly have a 9-5 picket fence job. I don't want all that to just disappear."

She wraps an arm around him, fingers threading in his luscious and deep brown curls before sliding her shorter arm to rest on his large bicep. 

"And it won't," he simply replies. "SHIELD be damned, you come first."

Daisy heard this from him often, but every time he said it, she thought back ten years ago, how helpless she felt. Back then, she had felt homeless-and technically, she was- with no place in this world. She had given up all hopes on a content life, on a family.

She had proven herself wrong after all. SHIELD was her family. Coulson and May were her parents, FitzSimmons were her closest siblings, Mack was her older brother, and YoYo was the big sister she never had. 

And Daniel Sousa... he was the very epitome of everything she had lost when Jiaying had gone rogue so many years ago: love. 

"I love you, Daniel Sousa," she whispers near his ear with a small laugh, her demeanor changing at the new thoughts. He always had a way to make her feel the same way she had kissing him in that very first time loop three years ago. "I love you so much."

"Even though I'm a square?" he teases lovingly, pressing a long and lingering kiss to her forehead. He burrows his face in her wavy hair, breathing her in.

"Especially because you're a square. Squares are the best shape. Sturdy, strong, lovable... but can make life a real pain in the ass if you use them as a SHIELD agent. But for certain sarcastic and moody yet lovable beautiful wifeys... they're all softies. You're my square," she replies with a small smile, reaching upwards to plant a light but emphatic kiss on his soft lips. 

A smile spreads over his face at the gesture. "I love you too, Daisy Johnson. Both of you."

For the first time(though he brought it up way too much during regular conversation), he addresses the barely visible bump forming on her stomach. His hand comes to rest on it for just a moment before wrapping his wife in his arms and closing his eyes, the two sleeping the best they ever had in weeks.


	2. can we always be this close?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy is mysteriously sick... or is she? Whatever the case, Daniel doesn't find out until a particularly risky mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has some Kora and Daisy sister content that we deserve.

"Kora, where're we headed for?" Daisy called out from a chair on the other side of the Zephyr 3. She was flipping through a recent pop culture magazine and munching on half a sandwich, humming something absentmindedly. She had been feeling queasy all morning and chalked it up to hunger. Some food smelled pretty unappetizing these days, and she hadn't been eating as well as normal.

She had other suspicions, but... no, that couldn't be true.

It had been 3 years since the team had gone their separate ways. FitzSimmons had retired from SHIELD permanently to relax and enjoy their time with 7 year old Alya. Her "Auntie Daisy" stopped by whenever she could and spoiled her silly, yet her most favorite person on the Earth seemed to be her Uncle Danny. Daisy had teased him mercilessly for that little nickname, and it seemed Alya was the only person who was allowed to call him that. 

Mack and Elena had gotten married a year ago. They were holding off on kids for at least a little while because of Elena's more than active field agent status. Coulson was somewhere in Greece, and May was a much beloved teacher at the newly named Coulson Academy. She would never truly stop loving Phil, and she wasn't sure she could love anyone as potently as him, but a colleague had connected her to someone she got on with well. 

As for Daisy, with her fiance and Kora, she had gotten a semblance of normalcy back in her life. The edge that used to define her before her time at SHIELD was more pronounced now, though she'd never be the same after all her ordeals. The maturity and experience she'd developed over the past 10 years was probably for the best, however.

"New galaxy, about 200 miles away. They want us to scout any habitable empty planets and identify any potential hostiles, and we should be there in an hour-ish," she called back automatically. With a slight grin, she hollered, "That means there's plenty of time for you and Agent Sousa to do the deed in your bunk while I pretend I don't notice."

Daisy laughed and shook her head, rolling her eyes at her younger(older?) sister. Daniel, still not as accustomed to 21st century liberties, flushed a darker shade. It was one thing with Daisy, another with the casual innuendoes and foul mouthed tendencies of people. Daisy thought him being embarrassed was one of the most precious things she'd ever seen.

He attempted to change the subject, walking over to crouch down beside where Daisy was sprawled out on a couch. "Who are you reading about today?"

"A relatively new interview with Taylor Swift and Paul McCartney. It's pretty damn cool," she responded. She got up and scooched over, inviting him to sit beside her. "I forgot you missed the Beatles by about a decade, didn't you?"

He lowered himself onto the couch beside her, leaning to the side to peer at the magazine. "Taylor Swift...that's the gal you like, right? And Paul McCartney's... that boy band, wasn't it?"

"Mhm," she hummed. She grinned with pride at his remembrance of her 'lessons' of the past couple decades. "You remembered!"

"How could I not? You screeched this morning when you found out," he said dryly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer to him affectionately. 

"Almost as hard as you cried when you found out Frank Sinatra died in the 1970s," she harrumphed, poking his chest with a finger. He had no response to that, and she took a particularly triumphant bite of her sandwich.

Suddenly, a wave of nausea rolled over her, curdling her insides until something felt like bubbling up from her stomach...

She quaked her way out of the couch(knocking him back more forcefully than she had intended) and ran for the small bathroom on the Zephyr, propelling herself there with her powers. She collapsed in front of the toilet and retched out the entirety of the half sandwich in her stomach. She hadn't even bothered to shut the door behind her.

She faintly registered Kora's murmuring to Daniel that she had put the Zephyr on autopilot. She tried to hold her streaked brown hair back with her hands.

Thankfully, she heard the patter of feet and a door shut. Kora, quick as a wink, was on her knees next to her. She held back her sister's hair, rubbing her back sympathetically.

This had been happening for about a week, always around the same time. Daisy had insisted on it probably being some new allergen in the air in one of the galaxies they had briefly stopped at, but for days after, she felt the symptoms.

Kora thought it was something bigger than that, and Daniel didn't know what to make of it. In the 1950s, men didn't get much instruction about women's health. Daisy was slowly teaching him, but he wasn't exactly Fitz when it came to these things.

Finally, Daisy lifted her head, eyes bleary and lips set into a stiff frown.

"Daisy..." Kora began with a sigh, squeezing her shoulder. "I think it's time we-"

"We're not going back to Earth," Daisy interrupted sharply, standing up quickly to rinse out her mouth. "I told you that it's nothing."

"It's not nothing!" Kora insisted, standing across from Daisy and blocking the exit. "You know what I think about it, and-"

"You're wrong," she cut in again, shaking her head in pure and simple denial. "It can't be true."

"Just a quick stop home to check, Daisy. Our cycles are synced, and I haven't seen a single pad in the trashcan either." Daisy tried to push past her, but Kora sidestepped, flaming her fingers and touching it to the lock for a split second. "You can't move until it cools down now, and don't you dare try to quake your way out of this one."

Daisy harrumphed and sat on the ground, pulling her knees to her chest with a deep sigh. She curled up into a ball, and her head rested on her legs.

Kora suspired with a sympathetic frown, plopping down beside her sister. She placed a comparatively pale hand on Daisy's and squeezed it.

"I know you're right," Daisy said, her voice muffled by the fabric of her shirt sleeves. A silky curtain of dark brown hair eclipsed her face from view. "I'm...afraid. Of having to give up this life. That Daniel's going to back out. That... I'm going to screw this up. I want to pretend like this just never happened." She groaned as Kora massaged her back. 

"First of all, we can both agree that you're always going to be an agent at heart. Settling down for just a couple months won't change that. Second, that man would quite literally move worlds for you. Third, on the off-chance that something ends up happening, you would be the most magnificent mother this Earth has ever seen. So, Miss Lead Astro-Ambassador, I'm going to make the calls on this one." 

She finished with a decisive nod, making it clear that she wasn't speaking as a member of the team anymore, but rather as a concerned sister putting her foot down.

"We have to stop by Earth and buy a pregnancy test. If that's positive, we stop by Simmons' to get some blood work done and make sure. I'm setting course for Sheffield right now. After that, you know who you need to talk to." She stood up, offering her hand to help her sister up. Daisy accepted it, letting herself use the support to stand.

It reminded her in a weird metaphorical way of her own life after the Rising Tide. Every time she had thought she was alone at rock bottom, SHIELD had helped her up, get on her own two feet.

It would help her again one week later when she was staring at two faint pink lines on a white stick.

_____________

"Hostiles at your 4!" Kora yelled to Daisy. She simultaneously packed a ball of energy and sent it towards a tentacle headed humanoid. 

"Got it," she responded, her right leg swinging to hit the alien square on the face and knocking it out. It had been two days since Simmons had confirmed that yes, there was something, someone inside of her. She had expected to feel the instant motherly connection that all the books preached of, but all she felt was nothingness, even a hint of contempt. As if the news hadn't fully sunk in yet. 

She knew that she probably shouldn't have been on a high-risk mission like this, but she had wanted some semblance of normalcy back. 

Her eyes flitted around at the creatures coming towards them at alarming rates. Her eyes widened in brief fright as one of the gray slimy creatures poised over Daniel's back(he was currently preoccupied with twisting a head off an alien's body). Her arm shot out instinctively and quaked the monster to pieces from a couple feet behind. 

Her fiance spun around in shock at the thud behind him before his face relaxed as he saw Daisy's arm lower by her side again.

"Thanks," he chuckled breathlessly, astounded every day by how amazingly agile and powerful she was. He had a thing for bad-ass SHIELD women that had lost past loves in a plane with a bomb in it apparently. However, although Peggy was spectacular, she could never compare to Daisy. Daisy was his soulmate, and that was the end of it. Every time he looked into her eyes, it just felt so fundamentally right.

"No problem," she smirked before single handedly taking down something looming behind her. 

"I can go all day," a creature growled from where he was deflecting Kora's punches and fires. "There's more where that came from."

Suddenly, another mass of gargantuan silver figures trailed out. All their eyes widened in alarm and terror.

"We can't take on all of them," Daisy stated, shaking her head. "The Zephyr's docked a mile from here. If we can get there fast enough, we might be able to leave quickly."

"But the sample?" Kora asked breathlessly, holding off two aliens at a time with her powers. Sweat gushed down her forehead.

"Not at the cost of our own lives. We can ask for backup sometime in the future and come back," Daniel said to her, instinctively moving closer to Daisy as more creatures zeroed in on her as the single most dangerous threat in the room. 

It was life or death now. Kora was barely holding off the two she was combatting, Daniel(though his prosthetic was like having his real leg back) was obviously the weakest without any powers and was very narrowly dodging the blows he was being dealt, and Daisy could barely fight them off without exhausting her power. 

Daisy watched with alarm as Kora screamed in pain as a tentacle scratched across her arm. Daniel had gash marks through his combat suit, and she herself had multiple wounds across her face and body.

A tentacle snaked out and wrapped around her neck, squeezing the air out of her. Suddenly, she was gasping, aimlessly struggling to fight off the oozing arms. No matter what she did, she couldn't take in a full breath. She went into shock, her body numbing and surrendering into a paralysis, a final fleeting push for survival. Her senses dulled, and it left her but a shell of her former self as her vision blurred. 

"Daisy! Hold on, I-I'm going to get you out!" Daniel cried, trying to kick the large creature. It was of no use. The grip on her only tightened.

Daisy understood what she needed to do. It would drain her, but it was a necessary cause. For her, for her new family. It was life or death now. If she chose something this perilous, it could save what mattered most.

"O-on the ground," she ordered her teammates through a trembling gasp, her eyes rolling back in her head as her vision went dark. She could no longer see those shining chocolate eyes staring at her with such distress. 

"Dais, are you sure-"

"I'll be fine," she gasped, her arms preparing themselves. 

With worry creasing his brow and turning his lips downward, he lowered to the ground, keeping his eyes trained on her.

With one last fleeting push for breath, a rumble shook the room and a powerful blast knocked every creature in a ten foot radius against the walls. 

Daisy thudded against the floor, her fists balling as her vision blacked for what seemed like the last time. 

Her last thought was simple. It was a will, a promise to herself to survive for three reasons: her beloved sister whom she hadn't had nearly as much time as she wanted with, the best person on Earth(her beautiful Daniel), and one more unexpected thought occurred to her.

Her baby, Daniel's baby, their child that they had created together. All of a sudden, the hostile became glorious as her consciousness ceased.

_________________

"Daisy, honey, I don't know if you can hear me right now, but you need-you need to wake up," a male voice pleaded. His voice cracked at the end, a warm hand stroking hers. "Kora rejuvenated all your wounds and physical damage, but now it's up to you."

A voice was faint against the blackness. She barely registered anything, but by the timbre of the voice, she could tell he was important. She loved him, and she needed to be there. She tried in vain to open her eyes, but it seemed like they were weighed down by boulders. Her fingers twitched in the direction of the sound, but there was no reaction.

"You know I love you. I can't... I can't be without you, Dais. You're the only one I've ever..." He struggled for words, and for a moment, she swore she felt droplets fall on her unfeeling hands. 

"I was going to be the one to pick you up when you ran into walls. Here I am, Daisy Johnson. I was going to do that for the rest of our life together. You have to... have to wake up for me. Fight, just like the formidable woman I fell in love with. I love you, Daisy. I know it probably means nothing to you because I say it too much, but I really do love you more than I can even fathom." 

The words gave her strength, and her mouth fell open slightly. Her voice crackled as she choked out, "Da-Daniel."

"Daisy?" he said hopefully, lifting her hand to his face. Her hand curled around it slowly, wincing at the strain of exhaustion. "Daisy," he repeated, a pearl of moisture falling onto her hand. He kissed every one of her fingers. 

"I-" She needed to tell him so that they could head back to Earth. She would be damned before she lost this child. If the wounds really were that fatal, she needed to make sure little Margaret Jemma Johnson-Sousa was okay. And yes, she had already decided on a name.

"Yeah, darling. What is it?" he asked. His hand floated up to stroke her soft and thick hair.

She patted her stomach lightly. "I'm..."

"What are you..." His brows furrowed in perplexment, his own hands drifting down to her abdomen.

"Baby," she muttered incoherently. "Ours. Our...baby."

He recoiled in shock, his muddy eyes flashing with both understanding and amazement.

"You're saying... you're pregnant? I'm going to be... a father?" He said the sentence like it was a a different language of the most refined and exquisite syllables possible, foreign and modern and extravagant. She made a small movement of affirmation with her head.

After a minute of contemplative silence, he smiled widely and stroked her stomach.

"Our child," he hummed in satisfaction, bending down to place a gentle kiss on the body part before resting his head there. Her hand came down to rest in his hair and thread through the dark curls peppered with white at the temples. 

"Our child," she repeated. She felt like she had just been run over by a truck, and she could barely speak or move, but she was somehow still the happiest she'd ever been.


	3. i'd marry you with paper rings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a babysitting session gone awry, Sousa's plans are foiled.

"Where are they?" Daisy whined, craning her neck to see across the wide expanse of the airport. She and her boyfriend were waiting at the Arrivals section of the airport. "Their flight landed at 6:30, and it's 7:30!"

"They still have to go through immigration and customs and get their bags," Daniel chuckled, taking her hand and tugging it gently. She finally sighed and stepped back from where she was standing on her toes.

"I just miss them," she said, leaning into him. Two years in the twenty first century dating quite possibly the most modern woman on planet Earth had made him less modest about the little displays of affection. He was still bashful when they'd be watching an R rated movie with friends or when Daisy would practically pounce on him if he was away for long, but he had made significant progress as a member of the modern world.

"Mm, really? I didn't know," he teased, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and squeezing her to his chest for a moment. "You've only said it... uh, twenty times now?"

"Shut the hell up," she scowled, swatting him on the arm lightly. Her eyes landed on something in the distance, and they lit up. "Oh my God, I see them!"

She and Daniel weaved their way through the crowd to the confused family.

"Jemma!" Daisy called out with a smile brighter than the morning sun. Jemma spotted her and grinned just as happily, running towards that direction. 

They met in the middle and threw their arms around the other, embracing each other tightly. 

"I've missed you so much," Daisy said, her voice muffled by Jemma's shoulder.

"Likewise," Jemma laughed, blinking away a tear of joy. "Has it really been two years since we saw each other in person? No holograms or FaceTime calls?"

"Unfortunately. But you're here now! For two weeks! Now, where's my niece? I want to see how much she's grown."

As if on cue, she heard Fitz's voice call out, "Ay, Jemma! Some of us aren't as fast as they were when they were seventeen!" A little girl was balanced on his hip as he made his way over to them. 

"I see Fitz is the same as ever," Daisy chuckled, waving to him excitedly. She let out a small gasp at Alya's gap-toothed grin. "I can't believe she's really six already." 

"She's growing too fast for us," Jemma agreed as Alya hopped out of Fitz's hold. Alya was pretty much the most beloved person in the little extended SHIELD family that they had. Mack and Daisy had started a competition for 'most beloved aunt/uncle' when they had met her, but unsurprisingly, Alya had taken an instant liking to Daniel. She was a lot like Daisy in that way. 

It was probably something about them bonding over the genius of animated movies. Disney had come a long way since his time.

"Uncle Danny!" she cheered, her scrawny pale arms squeezing his legs. He picked her up with no effort, swinging her onto his shoulders as she giggled. "Look, I'm even taller than Auntie Daisy!"

"You're a big girl now," Daisy cooed, reaching up to take the little girl's hand from where it was rested around Daniel's neck. Simmons started talking to her about something, and she immediately turned her attention to that, watching from the corner of her eye the interactions between her boyfriend and the little girl with a smile. He was always so good around her.

A sudden pang went through her that was gone as quickly as it entered. It was the thought of... what if, someday in the future, we could have one of our own? What if we could spend the rest of our lives together?

She lightened at the possibility-it was something they'd been talking about- and the odd little family headed home.

_________________

A week later, they had given Jemma and Fitz a date night with the promise to take care of their daughter. Fitz had been near hysterical to leave his 'little monkey', but it seemed to be going well. Alya, like always, was a perfect angel. She and Daisy had just finished a competitive Nerf war, and now she was curled up in Daniel's lap as he read to her.

Daniel Sousa had always been fond of literature, and it seemed he was cultivating that trait into their niece. Alya was already giggling and commenting along to Anne of Green Gables, and she insisted that only he and her mum could read aloud to her.

"Anne's horizons had closed in since the night she had sat there after coming home from Queen's; but if the path set before her feet was to be narrow she knew that flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it. The joy of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial friendship were to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her ideal world of dreams. And there was always the bend in the road!

"'God's in his heaven, all's right with the world,'" whispered Anne softly," Daniel read out before closing the book. "That's the end, sweetheart."

Alya frowned. "But what happens with Gilbert? Does she ever end up going to Redmond?"

"You'll have to wait and see for the next book. We'll head to the library tomorrow and pick it up, okay?" 

Alya nodded enthusiastically, flinging her tiny arms around his neck. 

"For now, why don't you go pick out another book from upstairs?" he urged, picking her up and setting her on the floor. She nodded and scampered up to the small home library he had collected.

Daniel pulled Daisy into his lap, his muscular arms wrapping around her midsection and pulling her to him.

"You're awfully domestic today," she noticed with a grin, planting a gentle kiss on his lips. "It's sweet. I'm just mad she likes you so much."

"She can read every book and still not be smart if she likes me better than you," he responded with a chuckle. "Every little girl wants to be you these days."

"Believe me, they don't," she warned with a scoff. "They have no idea how much they don't. The only bright side to my life is my job and my family. Everything before age 25 was hell, and right up to age 32, we were facing extinction every other day."

"Plus, which idiot wants a partner from the 1950s?" 

She giggled girlishly(a sound she'd never dare to make around anyone else) and responded, "Me. I would. They're very cute and square and gullible." 

"Gullible?" he exclaimed softly, raising an eyebrow. "How so?"

"Remember how I convinced you a year and a half ago that every time you watched a movie on Netflix, you couldn't watch it again without being charged on your card?" she laughed, smirking devilishly at him.

"That's not fair! I was new to your time back then!" he denied vehemently. She leaned into his embrace, kissing him on the cheek. 

She leaned in closer and whispered seductively, "Or when I convinced you six months ago that your camera app was recording us every time we-"

"I'm back!" Alya announced, scampering back down the stairs with something hidden behind her back just as Daniel's cheeks darkened with recollection. Her face was quizzical at the position they were in. "Is Uncle Danny reading you a story too?"

"I was just leaving," Daisy negated as she got up, ruffling her niece's hair. "After you guys finish, we'll eat dinner and go out for some ice cream, alright?" 

Alya nodded excitedly before announcing, "I found a treasure!" 

Thinking it was just a 6 year old's antics, Daniel chuckled and played along. "And what's that?"

"I was looking through the book cases on the higher shelves-"

"The higher shelves? I thought we told you not to climb the shelves, sweetheart," he interrupted disapprovingly, shaking his head. Like the very picture of innocence, she grinned a full-toothed smile.

"I found a book with a prize in it! It's called," she squinted and examined the cover of the gold-spined book. Daniel seemed to freeze, his chocolate eyes going wide with panic. "The Great Gatsby!"

"Aly, why don't we put that back where we found it? It's too advanced for you," he urged, hoping she'd see the subtle unspoken plea. Unfortunately, it was a blunder thinking a six year old could catch on to it. 

"No, no, I want to see the treasure, Daniel," Daisy objected, her mouth lifting at the edges in poorly masked amusement. 

"Auntie Daisy's right! Maybe it's an ancient jewel!" she bubbled, opening her tiny clenched fist to reveal a simple yet elegant ring.

It wasn't large or very intricate. It was a thin gold band with a gold plated sapphire. Adjacent to the circular stone, two strips of diamond lined the delicate golden band. 

Clearly, Daisy had not been expecting this because he heard a sharp intake of breath. He glanced over at the woman he loved and saw her eyes wide with shock and wonder, her lips parted just barely, and her eyebrows raised. 

"Isn't it beautiful? You should give it to Auntie Daisy!" Alya urged innocently. Daniel adored Alya's pure naivety about societal norms, but in that moment, he knew it could make or break their relationship.

"That's only if... if she wants it, Aly," he explained, bending down to pluck the valuable piece of jewelry from her. 

Alya rolled her bright green eyes with a ferocity he didn't know where she'd learned. "Who wouldn't want something so gorgeous?"

Daisy had overcome her initial shock enough to splutter out a brief answer. "Yeah, who wouldn't?" she agreed with a small and subtle smile. "Wh-Where do you think it came from?"

"Maybe it was a...certain someone's mother's ring that he had kept with him. Maybe he hid it in a book that his sweetheart said she'd never be able to read because she could only imagine herself as one of the characters, and that messed her up. Maybe he had been waiting for the right time to give it to her, but never found one perfect enough for her," he "theorized", staring at her from across the room. He offered her an optimistic smile, and she couldn't help but return it. "Maybe he's hoping she'll let him give it to her now."

She took five slow, intentional steps towards him, knowing she might collapse if she walked any faster. She felt like she was floating away from Earth, and the only thing keeping her grounded was his handsome face that always looked upon her with such love and devotion. 

"Maybe she'll say yes," she simply responded , threading their right hands together. Her tone was as warm and sweet as honey in the sun. She mouthed, "I love you," to him when Alya was distracted, planting a brief kiss on his lips. 

He slid the ring onto her left ring finger, and it was as if it was made to be hers all along. It had always been a little small on his mother, he recalled. 

"A perfect fit," she murmured, examining the foreign object on her hand. It felt strange to know that it was going to be on her finger hopefully forever, but it also sent a flutter through her entire body. She could get used to it.

It was clear he wasn't talking about the ring anymore when he responded, "I always knew it would be."


End file.
